USgamer Looks at the Best Super NES Games 1993 Had to Offer

All told, 1993 wasn’t a bad little year for video games, especially if you had a Super NES — a fact that USgamer kindly reminds us of in their latest retrospective video featuring the best games to be found on a Nintendo platform in a given year of that console’s lifespan:

Sadly, however, as the accompanying article points out indirectly, if you want to play any of these games now, you’re pretty well screwed. The vast majority of the titles highlighted here are available in their Super NES release only, with the exception of Super Mario All-Stars, whose rather limited edition Wii port… is actually not commanding nearly as much on eBay or Amazon as I’d have expected.

On the bright side, while I doubt we’re seeing Goof Troop given the DuckTales Remastered treatment any time soon, at least Secret of Mana and Zombies Ate My Neighbors were released on Wii, while The Lost Vikings has a Battle.net release. And of course, we’ll be lucky if we see anything Bomberman ever again, since that’s under Konami’s umbrella now.

The one that kills me the most, however, is Star Fox. While I quite like Star Fox 64 and Star Fox Zero certainly has my interest, the original has always been my favorite. Sure, some of the graphics are a bit lacking in a way, but the stages and the music, oh lord the music. I don’t know why Nintendo doesn’t reuse more from this game, but I wish they would — the Corneria theme beats Star Fox 64‘s by a country mile (not that the latter is bad), and that’s just getting started!

Yeah, that’s the stuff. I’ll hum this one, but I only partly remember the other, to be honest. I also love this boss theme, if you’re interested. Suffice to say, I was thrilled when Super Smash Bros. finally dustedsome of the originaltracks off.

Last I heard, the word was that the rights to the game — or at least enough to keep it from being republished — lie with the now-defunct Argonaut Software. Same for any Super FX Chip game, too, though Nintendo at least remade Yoshi’s Island for the Game Boy Advance without it (for better or for worse). I have a hard time believing Nintendo couldn’t just buy the rights so that they own and can release their property, unless whoever has those rights is basically holding them hostage for an exorbitant price.

Whatever the case, I just hope it gets resolved someday. While Nintendo seems fine with forever keeping Star Fox 2 from ever seeing the light of day officially (and I think that may change eventually), I’d at least like to see the original Star Fox — and Stunt Race FX, for that matter — finally get their due and their rightful day in the sun again.

Incidentally, if they could remake Yoshi’s Island without the Super FX Chip, I wonder if they could do the same here.

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David Oxford is a freelance writer of many varied interests. If you’re interested in hiring him, please drop him a line at david.oxford (at) nyteworks.net.